GEM, Ind. - Most evenings, Gary Mithoefer can be found at the end of a long gravel driveway off a busy highway, tending two garden plots filled with white sweet potatoes, squash, cabbages and a dozen other vegetables still thriving in early fall.
The 62-year-old, who gardens after his workday ends at his state highway job, is one of a growing number of Americans rolling up their sleeves and digging into the dirt to raise crops or livestock on a small scale.
The produce and meat raised by these small farms, sometimes called "hobby" or "lifestyle" farms, provides much of the food found at the nation's farmers' markets and roadside stands, said Maria I. Marshall, an associate professor of agricultural economics at Purdue University. Many of the farms raise specialized crops and practice organic or sustainable farming.
Mithoefer, who sells whatever produce his family doesn't eat, freeze or can at a Saturday farmer's market, said he loves working outdoors with a nephew who helps him till, plant, weed and harvest plots covering about a half-acre just east of Indianapolis along U.S. 40, the famed National Road.
The Greenfield, Ind., resident recently sat in the fall sunshine near his fields vigorously washing buckets of cucumbers, squash, turnips and beets for the farmer's market as the air hummed with the din of cicadas and crickets.
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More Americans Growing Food on Small 'Hobby Farms'
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By Rick Callahan
Associated Press via Common Dreams, Oct 5, 2009
Straight to the Source
